Dealing with fast growth can be tricky, just ask Bruce Banner. One moment he’s a regular comic book uber scientist, then someone has the bad judgment to make him angry and next thing you know he’s a 10 foot green monster who uses guns for toothpicks and likes smashing things. That sort of growth always comes with consequences. In Bruce’s case, it’s his clothes that suffer. Inevitably we see the Hulk burst out of his shirt as he transforms, all the while counting ourselves lucky that his pants managed to hold on for dear life.
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The other day I came across a short presentation on entrepreneurship by Larry Page, co-founder of Google. In the presentation Page discusses setting aggressive goals and quotes a rather catchy motto which I think is just brilliant: “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible”.
In this post I thought I’d discuss some of the benefits for entrepreneurs and startups to setting aggressive goals and creating deadlines. But first let me begin with a story from my own experience… Read More
A couple of years ago there used to be this program on cable TV about renovating homes called Property Ladder. It was a great little show that followed various aspiring property developers as they attempted to buy, renovate and then sell property in the UK. The host of the show, one Sarah Beeny, would advise the would-be property magnates on keeping costs down, being sensible about what sorts of choices they made and generally helping them to make a profit. Read More
When one-time Apple evangelist turned entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki launched AllTop a year ago, I remember reading some pretty bad press. Headlines like Guy Kawasaki Launches AllTop. Wow, it’s Bad. and AllTop – A gimmick site with marketing flair aren’t exactly what one hopes to launch to.
When I myself visited the site I had the impression that it wasn’t as bad as some of the tech press made out, but it didn’t appear to be anything to write home about. If asked I would have summed up the site as a so-so idea with a decent execution and a famous founder. So I expected AllTop would go the way Guy’s other venture Trumors went – that is to a small but relatively successful end in a quiet acquisition.
In the intervening months however, I’ve been impressed to see the site growing and improving rather consistently. To this day AllTop is still not a site I personally use, nonetheless there does seem to be an audience for it, and Guy and his team have been doing a really good job of persistently pushing the site in the right direction. Read More
When you have a long journey ahead, sometimes it’s best not to think too much about it. You’re much better off just getting started.
For some weeks now I’ve been working on a large upgrade to our popular freelancing site FreelanceSwitch. The upgrade includes a complete overhaul of the design, some large changes to the functionality of the site and coordinating a few different sub-projects. It’s been taking a lot of time and energy and as I write this, we’re only half way there.
This morning I was reflecting that if I’d known quite how much work was involved in the upgrade, I think I might have been a little less ambitious. And in many ways that makes me glad that I didn’t know.
A bit young, a bit naive
Three years ago when starting Envato I wrote out a business plan for our fledgling enterprise. It wasn’t a particularly solid plan, at least it didn’t have any hard numbers, or organisational charts, or many of the other things I’ve since learnt are meant to be in business plans. But it did contain our strategy for how the business would grow, and to put it mildly, it was an ambitious plan. Read More
